MY NAME IS MINE BUT DOES NOT ONLY BELONG TO ME
To Leonard Peltier who understands that in the hole of our captive lives holding on to our name is an ancestral duty and at the root of resistance
“The personal is poitical” The program of the Young Lords
“A rose is a rose is a rose” Gertrude Stein
This is humble contribution to a discussion about “ego” in the Movement
my name is mine
but does not only
belong to me
when i sign
it is with the blood
of my father
and how he died
poor and alone
when i sign
it is with the tar
that covered great uncle Silas
as he burned and agonized
my name is mine
but whispers with
the swinging
strangely fruitful trees
it is my name
and the legacy
it carries
the memory-snatchers
are after
my name is my name
is my name
and if
like Leonard Peltier
i am ever in the darkness
of the hole
i will write it on
a piece of toilet paper
and hide it under
my thin cover
lest i should forget
who i am
(c) Julia Wright September 2, 2026. All Rights Reserved
IT IS TOMORROW ALREADY
This poem was written to honor the Japanese art form, Kintsugi, which consists in mending broken pottery with gold dust and lacquer to weld the cracks – creating an object or a mindset that values breakage and imperfection as part of the timeline of its existence. Kintsugi finds creativity and meaning through destruction.
I crushed this poem to smithereens while I was writing it and offer it to the genocide victims repaired and in reparation.
it is tomorrow already
but yesterday lingers
heavy with the clouds
of grief unrained
it is tomorrow already
but yesterday still breaks up
my vision
of a rekindled day
it is tomorrow already
but the sky ahead
fails to lighten
as dark streams
of dreams
the settler soldiers have dammed
are drying
on the ravaged cheeks
of a black sun forlorn
lost
between the killer drones
in Gaza
it is tomorrow already
but daybreak is opaque
with human dust
hanging in the air
because the rubble there
is being caterpillared away
with the pulverized remains
of those who will be buried
nowhere
the need to counter
the sacrilege and the breakage
jolts me awake
and i try to crush this poem
into powder
and i mix it with resin
and gold dust
to create a lacquer
to weld the fracture
between
too many yesterdays of horror
and the fact
it is tomorrow now
for a whole new day
when Palestine will keep resisting
and from dawn to dawn
thereafter
(c) Julia Wright September 6, 2026. All Rights Reserved to Susan Abulhawa’s playgroundsforppalestine.org, to the steering committee of the GSF and to what remains of the family of the poet and educator, Refaat Alareer, murdered by the IOF.
I NEED NO TIME PIECE HERE
i need no time piece here
the morning glories
remind me the sun
has risen
while drops of coffee
fall too slowly
i try counting the sunbeams
filtered
by a green-grained canopy
a pillar candle lit
paces
my working day
the long moment it takes
to count the syllables
to create a haiku
is my egg timer
and
if a cat
named Sassafras
meows patiently
at my door
i know it is time to eat
(c) Julia Wright September 7, 2026. All Rights Reserved.
FOR BOOKS RIP, ON INTERNATIONAL LITERACY DAY
today is
international literacy day
as little state of the art
guillotines
have been built
to neatly slice
the spine of books
decapitating their very being –
what will we do
to be the scarlet pimpernels
of the literacy
that made us
the sum total
of a lifetime of reading?
and
so that we
may hold vigil,
where are the mass graves
of the books
the AI companies are killing?
or
will the shredded pulp
scattered
like ashes
from tree to tree
take root again
with intact
ancient knowledge
in the evergreen grain
of printed memory?
(c) Julia Wright September 8, 2026. All Rights Reserved. For the upcoming collection called “Ecology of Love”.
IN DEFENSE OF AUTHORITARIANISM
How do you overthrow a class, dismantle an oppressive system, and hold a new system in place against counterrevolution without using coercive force? Is a revolution a dinner party or the most authoritarian thing there is?
Calla Walsh’s response to the Guardian letter
From her “Abolish Liberal “Abolitionism” see full text below.
two generations ago
i came to the struggle
still dewy eyed with wonder
still docile and pliant
overbrimming with love
but clueless
back then
my very porousness
to those who surveil us
my maskless naivete
my utter good will
blinded me
and i fell into a trap
endangering
more freedom fighters
than just me
overnight
my hair turned gray
so
today
if i have chosen
authoritarianism if need be
it is because i had to grow
an armor,
if i have become
gently embattled
it is because there are more –
legions more –
to protect and fight for
than my own safety
and today
if i have understood
that Revolutionary Love
does not stand a chance
without the body-guard of raging anger –
it is because
i have accepted each one of us
could be the prisoner
imperialism
will not take
(c) Julia Wright September 14, 2026. All Rights Reserved.
